New York Times
By CRAIG LEISHER

Living in a cabin in the woods with three boys, two cats and a flexible schedule means every day is different. But there’s one constant to my weeks. On Thursday afternoons, I know I’ll be in a town 30 minutes away standing under a white awning and waiting in line.

There always seems to be a line at Jason Hartford’s vegetable stand. He has no sign along the road and puts no prices on his produce; one discovers his stand by word of mouth or by slowing down to see why there’s a small crowd in a northern Maine town, as I did.

He talks to each customer about what he sells, focusing on the varieties of lettuce he offers or why he grows a particular kind of basil. He’s educating one customer at a time.

The first Thursday, I just listened. The second Thursday, I asked a few questions. The third Thursday, I heard him say that he has an open farm policy, and a few weeks ago, the family and I visited his farm.

After an hour’s drive following Jason’s directions, most of which involved local landmarks like the power substation and the car repair shop, we arrived.

It was the first time our boys had ever seen a working farm, and they were thrilled to help trim potato onions before walking the fields.

We visited the field where our broccoli, bell peppers, sugar snap peas and lettuce grow. We watched the turtles and frogs in Jason’s pond, which is fed by an artesian spring providing clean water to the farm. We saw the sugar shack where he makes maple sugar in the winter. We helped catch escaped chickens and put them back in the coop, which he moves every few days so the chickens can eat the insects in his cover crops of oats and peas.

Jason is tall with a bushy red beard and friendly blue eyes. He’s the kind of person who helps his neighbor’s teenage son grow his first field of corn. Friends just show up at his house with a fresh-baked pie and tell him to “eat hearty.” Yet that’s not what makes Jason so unusual.

Jason is a fifth-generation Maine farmer. He cultivates the land first planted by his great-great grandfather in 1878. He lives with his wife and two kids in the farmhouse built by his great-great grandfather. He still uses a well-maintained mechanical seed drill bought new in the 1940s by his great grandfather. It’s parked beside the restored 1963 International tractor that he still uses. History and heritage matter to Jason.

And yet he is a different kind of farmer from the four generations before him. There are no corn rows, hay fields or dairy cows on the land today. Instead, Jason grows organic vegetables and lots of garlic. The vegetables, he sells locally at his stand and to people who buy a share of his production in a community-supported agriculture arrangement. The garlic, he sells for seed to MainePotatoLady.com, where it’s sold nationally.

Jason is different in another way from many farmers of old: he had other career options and spent time away from the farm but chose to come back. He also chose to focus on organic vegetables when very few others were doing the same. Organic farming is his passion. He’s a man who, as Joseph Campbell advocated, is following his bliss.

It was a wonderful farm visit for me from several angles.

Perhaps it’s because I am so recently arrived from suburbia, but I take pleasure in knowing for the first time in my life the actual person who grew my vegetables, and the very place where they grew.

I also like knowing that the vegetables our family eats are the freshest and healthiest they can be short of growing them ourselves.

Finally, I like to support people like Jason and his wife because they have found a 21st-century way to live a life that balances the needs of people and nature. Jason’s work to enrich his soils organically, maintain the natural forest on his land and protect his artesian spring may even meet the Iroquois test of benefiting people seven generations hence.

To support what he is doing, I will happily stand in line every Thursday.

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